Great Astronomers: Isaac Newton Ball, Robert Stawell Published: 1907 Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, Biography & autobiography, Science & Technology, Science and Technics, Science, Astro- nomy Source: The Internet Archive http://archive.org/details/ greatastronomers00balluoft 1 About Ball: Sir Robert Stawell Ball, Fellow of The Royal Society, (1 July 1840, Dublin – 25 November 1913, Cambridge) was an Irish as- tronomer. He worked for Lord Rosse from 1865 to 1867. In 1867 he became Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin. In 1874 Ball was appointed Royal Astronomer of Ireland and Andrews Professor of Astronomy in the University of Dublin at Dunsink Observatory.[1] In 1892 he was appointed Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geo- metry at Cambridge University at the same time becoming dir- ector of the Cambridge Observatory. His lectures, articles, and books (e.g. Starland and The Story of the Heavens) were mostly popular and simple in style. However, he also published books on mathematical astronomy such as A Treatise on Spher- ical Astronomy. His main interest was mathematics and he de- voted much of his spare time to his "Screw theory". He served for a time as President of the Quaternion Society. His work The Story of the Heavens is mentioned in the "Lestrygonians" chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses. He was the son of naturalist Robert Ball and Amelia Gresley Hellicar. (Biography from Wik- pedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stawell_Ball) Also available on Feedbooks for Ball: • Great Astronomers: Galileo Galilei (1907) • Great Astronomers: Nicolaus Copernicus (1907) • Great Astronomers: Johannes Kepler (1907) • Great Astronomers: Edmond Halley (1907) • Great Astronomers: Tycho Brahe (1907) • Great Astronomers: Pierre-Simon Laplace (1907) • Great Astronomers: William Herschel (1907) • Great Astronomers: William Rowan Hamilton (1907) • Great Astronomers: James Bradley (1907) • Great Astronomers: John Flamsteed (1907) Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks http://www.feedbooks.com Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes. 2 Chapter 1 IT was just a year after the death of Galileo, that an infant came into the world who was christened Isaac Newton. Even the great fame of Galileo himself must be relegated to a second place in comparison with that of the philosopher who first ex- pounded the true theory of the universe. Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December (old style), 1642, at Woolsthorpe,1 in Lincolnshire, about a half-mile from Colsterworth, and eight miles south of Grantham. His father, Mr. Isaac Newton, had died a few months after his marriage to Harriet Ayscough, the daughter of Mr. James Ayscough, of Market Overton, in Rutlandshire. The little Isaac was at first so excessively frail and weakly that his life was despaired of. The watchful mother, however, tended her delicate child with such success that he seems to have thriven better than might have been expected from the circumstances of his infancy, and he ultimately acquired a frame strong enough to outlast the ordin- ary span of human life. For three years they continued to live at Woolsthorpe, the widow's means of livelihood being supplemented by the income from another small estate at Sewstern, in a neighbouring part of Leicestershire. In 1645, Mrs. Newton took as a second hus- band the Rev. Barnabas Smith, and on moving to her new home, about a mile from Woolsthorpe, she entrusted little Isaac to her mother, Mrs. Ayscough. In due time we find that the boy was sent to the public school at Grantham, the name of the master being Stokes. For the purpose of being near his work, the embryo philosopher was boarded at the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary at Grantham. We learn from Newton him- self that at first he had a very low place in the class lists of the school, and was by no means one of those model school-boys 1.England 3 who find favour in the eyes of the school-master by attention to Latin grammar. Isaac's first incentive to diligent study seems to have been derived from the circumstance that he was severely kicked by one of the boys who was above him in the class. This indignity had the effect of stimulating young Newton's activity to such an extent that he not only attained the desired object of passing over the head of the boy who had maltreated him, but continued to rise until he became the head of the school. The play-hours of the great philosopher were devoted to pur- suits very different from those of most school-boys. His chief amusement was found in making mechanical toys and various ingenious contrivances. He watched day by day with great in- terest the workmen engaged in constructing a windmill in the neighbourhood of the school, the result of which was that the boy made a working model of the windmill and of its ma- chinery, which seems to have been much admired, as indicat- ing his aptitude for mechanics. We are told that Isaac also in- dulged in somewhat higher flights of mechanical enterprise. He constructed a carriage, the wheels of which were to be driven by the hands of the occupant, while the first philosoph- ical instrument he made was a clock, which was actuated by water. He also devoted much attention to the construction of paper kites, and his skill in this respect was highly appreciated by his schoolfellows. Like a true philosopher, even at this stage he experimented on the best methods of attaching the string, and on the proportions which the tail ought to have. He also made lanthorns2 of paper to provide himself with light as he walked to school in the dark winter mornings. The only love affair in Newton's life appears to have com- menced while he was still of tender years. The incidents are thus described in Brewster's " Life of Newton," a work to which I am much indebted in this chapter. " In the house where he lodged there were some female inmates, in whose company he appears to have taken much pleasure. One of these, a Miss Storey, sister to Dr. Storey, a physician at Buckminster, near Colsterworth, was two or three years younger than Newton, and to 2.Lanthorn: an archaic term for a lantern. 4 great personal attractions she seems to have added more than the usual allotment of female talent. The soci- ety of this young lady and her companions was always preferred to that of his own schoolfellows, and it was one of his most agreeable occupations to construct for them little tables and cupboards, and other utensils for hold- ing their dolls and their trinkets. He had lived nearly six years in the same house with Miss Storey, and there is reason to believe that their youthful friendship gradually rose to a higher passion; but the smallness of her por- tion, and the inadequacy of his own fortune, appear to have prevented the consummation of their happiness. Miss Storey was afterwards twice married, and under the name of Mrs. Vincent, Dr. Stukeley visited her at Gr- antham in 1727, at the age of eighty-two, and obtained from her many particulars respecting the early history of our author. Newton's esteem for her continued unabated during his life. He regularly visited her when he went to Lincolnshire, and never failed to relieve her from little pecuniary difficulties which seem to have beset her family." The schoolboy at Grantham was only fourteen years of age when his mother became a widow for the second time. She then returned to the old family home at Woolsthorpe, bringing with her the three children of her second marriage. Her means appear to have been somewhat scanty, and it was consequently thought necessary to recall Isaac from the school. His recently- born industry had been such that he had already made good progress in his studies, and his mother hoped that he would now lay aside his books, and those silent meditations to which, even at this early age, he had become addicted. It was expected that, instead of such pursuits, which were deemed quite useless, the boy would enter busily into the duties of the farm and the details of a country life. But before long it be- came manifest that the study of nature and the pursuit of knowledge had such a fascination for the youth that he could give little attention to aught else. It was plain that he would make but an indifferent farmer. He greatly preferred experi- menting on his water-wheels to looking after labourers, while 5 he found that working at mathematics behind a hedge was much more interesting than chaffering about the price of bul- locks in the marketplace. Fortunately for humanity his mother, like a wise woman, determined to let her boy's genius have the scope which it required. He was accordingly sent back to Gr- antham school, with the object of being trained in the know- ledge which would fit him for entering the university of Cambridge. 6 Chapter 2 It was the 5th of June, 1660, when Isaac Newton, a youth of eighteen, was enrolled as an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. Little did those who sent him there dream that this boy was destined to be the most illustrious student who ever entered the portals of that great seat of learning. Little could the youth himself have foreseen that the rooms near the gate- way which he occupied would acquire a celebrity from the fact that he dwelt in them, or that the ante-chapel of his college was in good time to be adorned by that noble statue, which is regarded as one of the chief art treasures of Cambridge University, both on account of its intrinsic beauty and the fact that it commemorates the fame of her most distinguished alum- nus, Isaac Newton, the immortal astronomer.